Saturday, February 19, 2005

Paris Day 2

Well, today was a long day. It was a "best of Paris" day for Liz and I. I struggled out of bed around 8:30 after a long, great sleep. Waking up, it was pouring rain outside and that really put me in a bad mood because I was sick and didn't have an umbrella and all our plans were to be for ourside stuff. So, I was really bummed. :-/ Showered and stuff then met Liz for breakfast at 9:30. It was free and good and filling. :) As we were finishing breakfast, we realized that the rain had stopped and it was actually starting to get a little sunny out. I was so excited, it was awesome! God is always to good to us and He stopped the rain just in time. :) We ran off around 11 and made plans to see most of the major things in Paris during the afternoon. We jumped on the metro and went back down towards the middle of town. We got off near the island on the river where Notre Dame is. We saw some cool stuff and the buildings on the island were really neat and we almost went in another church, but it was expensive and had a long line, so we didn't. We went over to the church of Notre Dame and it was awesome. The outside of it was amazing and the inside was incredible too. It was a huge ceiling and awesome stainded glass all over the walls. I really enjoyed it a bunch. :-) After Notre Dame, we made our way over towards the Latin Quarter. On the way, Liz's eye caught and restraunt that sold awesome-looking quiches. We decided to grab a couple slices to go and then ate them up in a pretty little park. The quiche was awesome. I got a ham and cheese one and just about died happy. :) Mmmm!! So that was great, then we wanded through the Latin Quarter a little. It was really neat with a ton of stores and restraunts and stuff and just tons of life. The atmosphere was really fun. :) After passing through, we made our way over across the river again to the Bastille. We were expecting to find the actual building and we spent forever wandering around trying to find it to no avail. Then found out that it was gone and had just been replaced with a huge monument. :-/ At least the streets around the area were pretty fun to see, so it wasn't a total waste! From the Bastille, we got on the metro and headed over to the area near the Arch of Triumph. We walked over to it and it was really stinkin big and sweet. It was located on a little "island" in the middle of like 12 intersecting streets. In fact, the traffic patterns were just about as amusing as the arch itself. So, that was cool to see, then we walked over towards the Eiffel Tower. Oh, and I should point out that all this afternoon, the weather was really nice. It wasn't extremely warm, but the wind died down somewhat and the sun would poke out every so often and it was just really nice. :) We made it to the Eiffel a little before 5 and it was really very neat. Just huge and impossible to fully explain without being there yourself. Very cool. :D We wanted to go up and debated about what to do. You can go up any of the four legs, one was closed, on two you take and elevator up but pay 11 euro and the lines were very long and very slow and on the last leg, you only pay 3 euro and the line was short and fast, but you have to walk up the stairs to near the top. Thinking that it was semi-insane to climb the Eiffel Tower, but also valuing time and money, we made the decision to do it. I'm so glad we did. :) It wasn't that bad at all. I think in total it was 600 or 700-something steps, but it went really well. There's like little platforms to rest every 20 steps or so and you can read a poster about a random fact about the Eiffel. And then half-way you reach the first level where there are areas to sit and view across the city and even a restraunt. :P Then you go up a whole ton more steps to reach the second level where you can also mill about and rest a little. This is also the level where you have to stand in a long line to catch the elevator up to the very top of the tower. Liz and I waited for like 45 minutes in line, gave the tickets to the lady, but she told us they were no good and we had to buy seperate ones. Luckily, she was nice and told us to cut in the side door in front of the line and she'd let us in. :) So, we went to buy other tickets and right before we did, this nice American lady with her family approached us and gave us her tickets for free because they decided not to wait in line and it was too cold for them. So that was so awesome of her and we made it up to the top for free! :) The top was awesome. There was a little, warm, enclosed observation area, and then you could take the stairs up above to where you were out in the open and overlooking all of Paris. It was so amazing! We got up there a little after 6pm and it was the perfect time. The sun had just gone down (we missed the sunset because it was cloudy :( ) but it was perfect because there was just enough light left to make out all the buildings and rivers and roads and stuff, but just enough dark to see all the city lights also. I loved every bit of it, it was so beautiful. :D We spent some time up there before realizing that we were turning into blocks of ice because the wind was so strong and cold, so we went on down and left the Eiffel by a little after 7. Then, we crossed the river again over to a palace that had a nice view of the Eiffel over the water. We hung inside the palace museum area and thawed for a bit before headed out around 8 to see the Eiffel go nuts. Every hour at night, the tower has hundreds, if not thousands of strobe lights all over it that light off for 10 minutes and it goes crazy. It's really quite something to see. There's also a big spotlight on top of it that twirls around. So, we got to see that at 8 and it was spectacular, of course. :) Then took a train up-town towards the hotel where everyone else was staying. We figured we should say hi since we had tried to get in touch with them and hang out, but stuff wasn't working too well. We found a number of peeps back in the hotel partying up around 9. We hung there and chatted for about 15 minutes before rolling out of there. We were very tired and very hungry once more. We made our way towards the train station to check on trains for tommorow morning. On the way we got lost of number of times and that was no fun, but then found yet another cheap Chinese place. It seemed ludicrous to eat Chinese in Paris two nights in a row, but we were starving and nothing else was open except for expensive bars, so we sucked up our pride and we did it. Once again, it was fabulous in the clutch, if not better than last night even. :) Oh, it was grand! And I ate just about my entire meal with chopsticks, even the rice! It took quite some effort. :P So, that was great, but by then it was getting to be after 10 and we decided that the train station wouldn't be open for info anyhow, so we blew that off and headed back to the hostel to get some rest. Got in around 11:30 and I'm going to bed!

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